


What's in a name?

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 14:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12584096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Three times people call Clarke something that she doesn't like, and one time she doesn't mind it so much.





	What's in a name?

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to finish a fic that's more on-theme for the holiday but I wrote this instead ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I also feel like even though I tagged it canonverse I should say that again because who knew I did that kind of thing

**(1)**

“Prisoner 319, you know the drill. Stand against the wall with your hands on your head.”

Clarke shook herself out of her daze, finding herself staring down at a charcoal forest. Ironic that she would be drawing Earth, when it’s the only view from her window. She could have drawn her father’s face, or her mother’s, or Wells’s– But drawing them would just make her homesick for the innocence of her life Before. Before Wells betrayed her, before her father was floated, before she was locked up in this–

“Against the wall, prisoner. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Clarke considers giving Shumway the middle finger as she heaves herself up and surrenders the way she always has to if she wants a furlough from her cell. It’s just a bathroom break, maybe a shower if she’s lucky, but it’s more than the nothing that surrounds her day in, day out.

Ultimately, she decides against the rude gesture. Until her eighteenth birthday, she’ll be the model prisoner. She’ll be perfect. Give them no reason at all to want to float her, if she can just bite her tongue long enough.

But as guard boots step deliberately atop her drawing, smearing the soft medium; as they bring her food on a tray with no silverware (as if a fork would do much good when they’re armed with shock batons), leaving her to devour the rations from the bowl like an animal; as they mock her under their breath, call her by a number rather than her name–

She hates them more than a little.

 

**(2)**

“Watch it, _Princess_.”

Sneers prod at her from every angle, the word oozing disdain and contempt. Biting her tongue has become a force of habit now, at least where the epithet is concerned. She knows she’s one of the privileged, just like those who condemned these delinquents to a potentially painful death. Just like the ones who locked them up in the first place.

The Blake siblings toss the nickname down like some sort of challenge, the elder of the two especially taking every cheap shot he can to put her in her place.

It’s not like Clarke doesn’t want to wipe that arrogant smirk off of Bellamy Blake’s face every time the taunt slips from his tongue. But she refuses to give him the satisfaction of rising to the easy bait. Instead she lifts her chin and shows him that Princesses know how to play too. That she knows how to play him to get what she wants.

Not everyone spits her newfound title with such venom. Monty and Jasper call her by her name, and she is fonder of them for it. Wells calls her Clarke as he always has, which she mostly ignores (something she’ll come to regret, later).

Finn’s voice softens on the word, almost like it’s a term of endearment. It’s… interesting.

He’s cute and earnest and tries to do the right thing. It’s easy to fall for him.

But it’s just as easy to fall out of her feelings for him, once Raven crash-lands. Once she sees that his moral high ground is too distant from reality for him to see things clearly. Once she realizes that she’d turn to Bellamy Blake to back her play before she’d turn to Finn.

His pleads of “ _Princess_ ” turn sour. She’s too busy keeping everyone alive to worry about either of their hearts.

Bellamy’s use of the name sits heavy on her shoulders. She’s no longer a little girl playing a game, but a leader who bears the weight of the decisions they have to make in order to survive.

She doesn’t bear them alone.

 

With “Thanks, Princess” echoing in her ears alongside Raven’s devastated cries, she’s grateful to be met at the gate with her own name dropping softly from his lips. Ostensibly, he’s returning her weapons to her. In reality, Clarke knows Bellamy well enough by now to see the soldier’s assessment in the sweep of his eyes over her bone-weary form. (Or is it the eyes of a brother? Or those of a partner? She has retreated too far inward to suss it out.)

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice gruff.

“I did what I had to do.”

She steps away, needing– needing– She doesn’t know what. Maybe a washbasin. She still has Finn’s blood on her hands.

“Clarke.” Bellamy’s voice stops her just as she passes him, her shoulder barely brushing against his. “I’m sorry you had to do it.”

Through the fog of grief, of regret, she doesn’t register that he used her name for once. As if he knew that it would be a long while before the name Princess stopped haunting her.

 

**(3)**

“You don’t like being called Wanheda, do you?”

“Depends on the context.” She tries for a smirk but it feels brittle. Like if she forces it any harder, it might shatter into a million pieces.

Niylah seems somehow amused and unmoved all at once.

“What’s the good context?” She asks, trailing her fingers up Clarke’s side as if committing her to memory.

Clarke smirks harder, because she’s never been a quitter.

“In the throes of passion, maybe,” she teases, and is met with a raised eyebrow.

“I believe I was calling out for _Clarke_.” She pauses. “Although, I suppose of all the ways to die…”

Her laugh sounds fake, though she’s not sure Niylah knows her well enough to know the difference.

“What a way to go,” she agrees, turning onto her back so that she doesn’t have to look her in the eye anymore.

They’re quiet for a moment.

“They don’t just call you Wanheda because of the lives you’ve taken,” Niylah says at last. They aren’t in direct contact anymore, but her voice is as soft as her touch. “It’s also because of the lives you’ve saved. The lives of your people.”

Clarke lets her eyes fall shut, tries to regulate her breathing. Perhaps to Grounders, who find their glory on the battlefield, the name Wanheda is an accolade. Perhaps one day she’ll be able to look her friends in the eye and not be reminded of what lengths she went to, to keep them alive.

Perhaps she deserves the name that weighs her down like an anchor, drowning her in all the sins she’s committed. An ocean of her own making.

“That’s not how it feels.”

Niylah hums. “You don’t want to be Wanheda. You don’t want to be Clarke.” Her lips touch Clarke’s shoulder. “Who do you want to be?”

“Nobody, for a while.”

 

But of course, she can no more be nobody than she can be lighthearted and whole again. Roan brings her before Lexa and the twelve clans, and for the sake of her people she willingly accepts the mantle of Wanheda. For a time.

(The brief moment in that cave when Bellamy found her, the jolt of pure light that shone in his expression as he brushed her hair back from her face– that’s as close as she came to feeling like the old Clarke again.)

(The moment he despised her as she thwarted his rescue later– that’s the furthest she’d ever felt from herself.)

And in the end, even that name fails her, because what good is being the Wanheda when she couldn’t even save her own lover?

Maybe that’s the curse of Wanheda. The trade-off. Save the lives of her people, and in return, watch those she loves as they die.

 

**(4)**

“Hey, Radio-face! Stop talking to your boyfriend and come eat before I decide I’m hungry enough for seconds!”

“Did you hear what she called me?” Clarke murmurs into the radio, shaking her head. “Kids these days. No respect. It’s like she’s been raised by a delinquent. Oh, wait–”

“Clarke.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” She’s smiling as she hits the button one last time for the day. “If you make it down in time, I bet we’ll have leftovers. We caught plenty of fish today. Madi’s favorite.”

In reality, both of them are tired of seafood, but other sources of protein have been hard to come by. A lot of wildlife didn’t survive the death wave, or starved when their food sources disappeared. They’ve found a way to grow beans, and they’ve even come upon some nuts, but Clarke still has vivid memories from the last time she ate nuts without knowing where they came from. She isn’t too eager to experience that again.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow, Bell. Unless I see you before then.”

Madi is settled on the hood of the Rover, feet banging against the metal as she swings them contentedly.

“You really believe he’s gonna talk back one of these days?”

“Maybe,” Clarke says lightly. It’s too painful to think about the alternative. “I still hope so.”

Because I’m still breathing.

“I’m going to have to come up with a new nickname,” Madi muses. “If he shows up I mean. You won’t have the radio on your face all the time.”

“It’s probably good to go ahead and start thinking of ideas now. So you’ll be prepared.”

“Radio-face is so good though.”

“She’s right, that’s a good one.”

Madi’s eyes go wide. As wide as Clarke’s probably are, except she can’t tell for sure because her face feels numb. Every part of her feels numb.

On the worst days, when the static on the other end of the radio rang loud in her ears, she’d had trouble remembering everything about him– his eyes, his mannerisms, but especially his voice. Hearing it for the first time in six years, she’s certain she’d know it anywhere.

“Are you him?” Madi asks. Clarke hasn’t even found the muscles she needs to turn to face him.

“If by him you mean…”

“Bellamy.”

“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Then, yeah. I’m him.”

She finally manages to move and his eyes are the first thing hers find. Brown and deep and so warm she gets goosebumps.

He smiles a crooked smile underneath his facial hair, his throat choked up as he says, “Hey, Princess.”

Nothing ever sounded so good in her entire life.

She takes one staggering step toward him, then two, and then she’s in his arms. They fit together like it’s muscle memory, puzzle pieces slotting together because their edges are worn in the exact same places.

“Where are the others?” She asks without tearing herself away. She’s not certain she’s able.

“I kind of left them behind.” He’s smiling, she can tell. His palm is pressed flat to her back, like he’s soaking up every thrum of her too-quick heartbeat. “Our frequencies picked your signal up about a mile out, and I– Well, I thought I was losing it, but then it seemed like everyone else was hearing it too. As soon as Raven was able to pinpoint it…”

“You were off.” She sniffs, because his clothes have Ark dust on them, Not for any other reason. At all. “Charging ahead on your own, heart-first.”

“Yeah, well.” His grip slackens, his hands falling to her waist as he steps back to look at her again. “You’re back now, so I don’t have to use my head anymore.”

Clarke laugh-sniffles, letting her forehead fall to his chest. “That’s not how this works.”

He huffs a laugh, pressing his lips to the crown of her head.

“Just give me this one, okay Princess?”

“Um… I’m still here, you know.”

Clarke picks her head up, turning to make a face at Madi, who looks downright smug. Introducing her to Raven is going to be the worst.

“And here I was hoping our mushiness would have run you off.”

“Are you kidding? This is the first interesting thing that’s happened in forever.” She hops down from the Rover, coming over to stick her hand out to Bellamy, just the way Clarke taught her. “I’m Madi.”

“Nice to meet you.” The handshake is oddly formal for the end of the world, but it makes Clarke giddy anyway. “I’m Bellamy, but I guess you already got that.”

“Believe me, I got it a long time ago.” She rolls her eyes. “Are you calling her Princess?”

“Well, Radio-face was already taken.”

Madi rolls her eyes again. It’s a favorite move of hers, of late.

“I’m going to go up to the ridge to look for the rest of them.”

“Bored with us already?” Clarke says, amused. She still hasn’t let go of Bellamy. She doubts she will anytime soon.

“It’s not my fault you guys are boring. Besides, I bet they’ll tell me what I really want to know.”

“I bet they will,” Bellamy mutters under his breath, watching her scamper uphill to the good climbing tree.

“Back for five minutes and you’re already teaching her bad habits,” Clarke sighs. “She’s not going to let the Princess thing rest easy.”

“Sorry,” he says, unrepentant. “Between me and Murphy, calling you by your name was never gonna last.”

“True.” She lets her lips tilt upward. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.”

“Yeah.” His grin is so bright it makes everything else look dim. “I think you probably will.”


End file.
